“OK, OK. Just checking.”
“I don’t even know why he would want it, anyway. It’s not like it’s pretty, or anything. It’s not cut to be jewelry. It’s just this big thick piece of stone. I know it means a lot to Xavier, it’s special to him, but why would Mitch want it?”
“I have an idea,” Javier said, and told her about the diamond Sarton had kept with Amy’s data on it. It was possible she’d encoded herself there, somehow, before the end. Or maybe it had always been there. All vN regeneration relied on fractal organization; one part contained the whole. It was part of why the iteration happened the way it did. If she’d had a contingency plan that included iterating Anza, then she’d also likely backed herself up somewhere. Either she was relying on the copy she knew Sarton had, or she had something else on the go.
The woman had hidden herself in a damn shell game, and because of it, Mitch Powell had their son.
For the first time, Javier felt a surge of anger for Amy. For a long time, his mingled grief and guilt had obscured it. But she clearly had a plan for all of this – she had managed to secure Xavier’s safety, and to iterate Anza – and hadn’t included him in any of it, whatsoever. Worse, she had left him alone to deal with the aftermath. He was flying blind in this situation, and had been ever since emerging from the belly of the whale. Meanwhile, Portia was wreaking havoc, FEMA was going to kill them all, and clouds of radioactive fallout were hovering over everywhere.
He would have to bring her back just to tell her how fucking pissed he was. But first, he had to worry about Xavier.
“So this is a trap,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“I figured.” She dug through the pile and found a multitool. She flicked out one of the blades. “If you pretend to go alone, I can sneak up behind him and hurt him. It would have to be quick, though. Otherwise you and Xavier will see it, and…” She drew a line across her throat.
Javier stared at the drawing on the floor. She had a good point. He could even send Anza alone, and wait somewhere else for Xavier. She was an accomplished jumper, and she could probably do more damage to Powell with a simple multitool than he could ever hope to do on his own. It would probably work. Probably. If what had happened to him in that little forest commissary didn’t happen to her. If he didn’t leave her to handle it on her own like Arcadio had done with him.
“Worry about your brother, not me. If you distract him long enough to get Xavier out of there, I’ll take care of Powell.”
“Dad, come on. You can’t–”
“I said I’ll take care of it.” He tousled her hair. “I’m the grown-up. It’s my job, not yours.”
As they hopped from snowy rooftop to snowy rooftop, Anza showed him her favourite parts of Mecha: Sam Lowry’s Brazilian Barbecue (they served the vN meat on swords!); the Entry Plug Experience (a capsule shaped vaguely like a tampon, that hung from a crane and let you simulate the destruction of the city in real time); the pattern library (where you could print anything, from clothes to furniture to auto parts). It was pretty. Christmas trees were everywhere. Apparently it was a big holiday for lovers, here. Lights twinkled and people laughed and guys behind carts sold the vN versions of roasted sweet potatoes. She and the boy had a real life here. They bought their vN food from a little grocery store in the basement of their complex. On Sundays, they went to the park, and ate at one of the department store food floors. They were helping a friend translate the works of Marquez into manga format. And he could see why they enjoyed it. It was everything he had hoped it would be. Beneath their outstretched feet Mecha was alive with motion, from the dancing botflies to the shimmering projections to the slow louvers on the exoskeleton of each building. It was a city made by machines, for machines. It was breathtakingly clean, and completely absent of any smell save that of cooking. No piss. No shit. No rot. No humans.
“Molly will know where he went!” Anza alit on the roof of an apartment complex. “She’s my favourite.”
Instantly, a projection materialized before them. It came in an aggressively old-fashioned way, one pixel at a time. The avatar had mirrors for eyes and long talons at her fingers. She appeared to be advertising some new-fangled kind of monofilament pipe cutter. At least, her shirt had a picture of a single thread, and read: “MILLIONS of uses!”
“Excuse me, Molly, but have you seen Xavier?”
The woman appeared to squint. With the mirrorshades it was hard to tell. She nodded Javier. “Isn’t that your brother?”
“No,” he and Anza said in unison.
“I’m the dad,” Javier said.
“Oh. That’s different.” She pointed. “Your brother is at the tower.”